


Pistachio Crumbs

by cinnamonsnaps



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, One Shot, Romance, sudden realisation that you love your best friend, the usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:23:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1648481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamonsnaps/pseuds/cinnamonsnaps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lightbulb moment.</p>
<p>Also a t-rex named t-WREKT.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pistachio Crumbs

He walks over to your seat, touches his pinky to your own as he sits on the tatty coach chair next to yours, and promises he'll keep your dorky ass in line. He's extra beautiful today, the webbing of faint red branded onto his cheeks like windburn, and the soft black hair curling on his forehead. Your admiration for him knows no bounds, but he'll never know that.  
You love him, it's true, in the deepest sense. Like a child loves ice cream, loves sunshine, like a diatomic oxygen molecule, you feel a pull and just can't let yourself not love this kid.  
He grins his seventeen year old goofy smile, all brace metal and a reclaimed jawline, and pokes your face.  
"Next stop dusty museum, cerca the 1960s. God, this is going to be boring."  
"Even the dinosaur skeletons?" You don't even know if there are any dinosaur skeletons there. What kind of place calls itself a museum if it doesn't have dinosaur skeletons, you swear to god.  
"Especially the dinosaur skeletons."  
You fake a gasp. Pure blasphemy.  
"Best part bro." You're sweltering under the heat of the sun streaming through the coach window, and it's not even midday yet.   
John doesn't help by leaning on you, lending you unneeded body heat. "No, the best part is obviously the part where we get locked in the museum overnight and start an amazing adventure where the exhibits come to life and start fighting and stuff."  
"Oh, of course Ben Stiller. That's so logical and likely I don't know why I didn't think of that."  
"Because you're dumb."   
"And you're not Ben Stiller."  
"If I'm not Ben Stiller, who gave you those shades?"  
"Your mom."   
His retort to that is thankfully drowned out by the fuzzy static of the coach tannoy. Forty minutes to arrival. Don't eat or drink on the coach.

You pass John the open packet of pistachio nuts, tapping his shoulder to get him to turn around from where he's talking to another kid. He opens his mouth expectantly.   
You know this code. You break a pistachio shell open and feed him the nut.  
"Thanks mama bird," he says as he chews. Dork. You throw a pistachio into the air and try to catch it.You don't. While he laughs at you, you flick a pistachio at his face, and when the salt grains stick to his cheek accidentally you wipe them off with your thumb. He's unfazed; this is normal.

The coach spits out its load of kids by the museum, and the stone facade is so unnecessary, so fake, so beautiful. Red brick and red sandstone pillars, ivy, pretentiousness.It makes you laugh, internally. People actually take this facade seriously, and it's funny.  
The class is herded and divided into pairs and John looks round to make sure he doesn't offend anyone before pairing with you, but you were going to steal him anyway. Who cares for altruism? John is your best friend.  
"Hoping for a better catch?" you joke, nudging his arm.  
"No, dumb butt. Of course I was going to go with you." He rolls his eyes at you and sticks his tongue out, and you stick yours back out at him because you're a mature adult human being. The class is sent into the museum pair by pair and you both shuffle so you go in last, an act in sync and in unison. 

First exhibit, some pottery. It truly is dull and you can feel John's attention wandering away, lost in the valleys of who knows what and probably not going to return any time soon. He presses up to the glass and traces drawings with his fingers while staring, glassy and unfocused, at no spot in particular, and his blue eyes are wide. You think they're beautiful. He is spacing out still, so you snap your fingers, pulling him back down to Earth from the clouds he was just in. "Egbert, don't go gorming out on me there. We still got an entire museum to finish."  
"Bluh, whatever!" He grabs your fingers to stop them clicking, before pulling you by the same hand towards a glass case containing early eye glasses. "Do you think they would have made shades back then if they knew how? Do you think anyone did wear shades?"  
"I dunno. Maybe the weird eyed kids got culled at birth." You shrug. John presses his fingers on the wings of his glasses behind his ears, so they wiggle up and down on his nose, and you have to hold back a snort.   
"I think your eyes are cool, to be honest. They're like super hero eyes. Anime eyes. You are the bishonen, it's you."  
"John, please do not go full weeb on me." 

Exhibit two, dead things. You actually get kind of intrigued, and man, as cool as you want to appear to your best friend... you totally want a picture with the t-rex skeleton. You pass him your phone and you pose, a slouchy thumbs up, you and your buddy T-Wrekt captured in digital form, and he laughs at you, and it makes you happy. Making John laugh is your favourite game, and it's hit and miss. Sometimes you're not even sure how you do it, but you still get the bonus points. You like it, making him laugh, being his centre of attention, grabbing it and holding. 

John kissed you at a party, about 6 months ago. It was the first time you had kissed a guy, and it was for a dare, and everyone was making out anyway. It was quick. Short and sweet.   
You just think about it sometimes.

He passes your phone back, exasperated at your desperate grabby hands for "my baby", and in revenge you take a bad blurry photo of his face. The teachers think you don't appreciate the surroundings, but you're having fun. Where else could you goof around next to a dinosaur skeleton? But the stern look of a teacher is chastising enough that you both quieten down, heading to a life size model of a creepy pre-Jurassic invertebrate that makes you shudder. John laughs, again.   
"It looks like you in the mornings," he jokes.

The morning after was weird, because it was like nothing had changed and no one remembered, and it was like it had happened in your head, except in real life. A stolen moment. Maybe people did remember, but they said nothing to you. It's not their business anyway, who you kiss or don't kiss.

"Thank you very much, you turdface," you quip, and it's fine. "Just cause you know I'm a handsome little shit and this- what is it, anomalocaridid - would be hella jealous of me in honesty."  
"Oh yes, so handsome." He fakes a swoon. "I totally prefer you to this terrifying toothy shrimp monster. I'm talking to the anomalocaridid by the way."  
You hit him in the shoulder, little shit, and the teachers herd you along to the next exhibit, which you pay little to no attention to. It's pottery again, from some old houses filled with old people, and you can't help but wonder if anything interesting was ever left behind by the wrinkly dudes and ladies who lived back then. If you were an archaeologist, you'd go to interesting places and dig up new species of dinosaur, for sure. John's going to find the cure for cancer with his degree in molecular biology, and you're going to answer the mysteries of dead things long gone, and it's all waiting for you right after you finish school, you finish college, and you'll still be best bros.   
You don't really care how your lofty dreams fail if you can still be best bros with him.

John is spacing out again, staring at some broken dish this time and tapping a tune on his own elbow. You stand by him and narrow your eyes at the spot he's fixated on, trying to find the deeper meaning. Nope, not seeing it. He blinks and looks at you, and you look at him, and you were going to say something funny. You forget what it is, and think about him instead.  
"Hey."  
"Hey," he replies, looking back at the dish and leaning against you sleepily. This is also a habit: even when neither of you are tired, you will yawn, and rest your heads on each other's shoulders, and close your eyes against the harsh daylight together. It's nice. It's quiet and soothing.

Something strange is happening to your hand and when you look, you realise that John is taking it in his own, a loose hold, fingers and knuckles just bumping together.  
The sun is streaming through the window and it is so intense, it burns even through your shades.  
Your hand is being cauterised off in a blaze of heat and nerves and electricity and nobody knows what is happening to you, least of all you.

He lets go. The sun goes in. 

"Hey Dave, come check out these goofy ass drawings."

He turns round and gives you a dazzling smile. The lightbulb moment happens.   
The floor is swallowing you whole and you are sinking quicker than an anchor into the depths of despair because, fuck, because. You follow him and don't think about it. Desperately don't think about it. You will always follow him, and you will always bite your tongue.

"Yeah, I'm. I'll be right there."


End file.
